


Breaking Even

by mjules



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Lonely Gay Shep, M/M, Mass Effect 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-02
Updated: 2012-03-02
Packaged: 2017-11-01 00:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/349831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjules/pseuds/mjules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Relationships in space don't always work out well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking Even

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kinneas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinneas/gifts).



> Thanks to @ademska for her headcanon and @autumnyte for her advice.
> 
> Lonely Gay Shep, hang on. ME3 is out next week.

He’s not sure when cards with Kasumi and Mordin became a thing, but somehow it did, and he’s grateful for it. It’s a relaxing pastime, if a bit expensive. They’re both card sharks, and he loses more credits than he wins at Skyllian Five (and a few more credits bribing Kasumi not to show the video to Donnelly in engineering), but it’s the sneaky way they use their observational skills against him that really ups the ante.

“Human sexuality complex,” Mordin says one night, out of the blue. “Intersects significantly with feelings of courtship, romance, isolation and intimacy.” He pauses for a breath. “Societal and biological pressures for reproduction not as strong as in other species, like salarian, but still there. Also myths of performance, integrity – antiquated, superstitious, but still held by some.”

Shepard studies his hand and selects a card to play as deliberately as he frames a response. “Are you telling me there are no gay salarians?” he says as he lays it down.

“Nonsense,” Mordin answers, the intake of air through his nostrils sounding affronted. “Salarians just as capable of joy, colorful aesthetics, as other species. More so than some.”

Shepard scowls at him across the table, and Kasumi snorts into her wineglass. “You’re both fired,” he says, and then groans when Mordin lays down a winning hand, looking especially smug. “Double fired.”

Kasumi’s no better, if slightly less academic in her meddling. “You know,” she says, slipping up behind him in the mess area a couple of days later, silent as a shadow. “I overheard Logan Faber telling Anson that he thinks you’re handsome. He’s single, too. I checked.”

Shepard glares, then glances over to see if Rupert heard. It’s bad enough having two of his friends meddling in his personal affairs – All none of them, he thinks morosely – without getting the cook involved in the gossip, but all he says to Kasumi is, “I thought we agreed you weren’t going to use your cloaking device to eavesdrop on the crew anymore.”

She shrugs, grinning. “I lied.”

**

Two days later, he’s cursing Kasumi for putting the idea in his head. He’s noticed Logan before – human, colonist, signed up with Cerberus after his baby sister went missing in a Collector attack – but he’s never let himself really look. He’s dark haired, sleekly muscled, warm brown skin and warmer brown eyes. He’s shorter than Shepard by an inch or two, but his legs are longer, and he’s temptingly slender through the hips. Kasumi brings him up again on cards night, and Shepard pretends not to hear her, but the next time he and Faber are in the mess hall at the same time, he finds himself unable to think of anything else.

Well, hell, he thinks. It’s worth a shot.

The table falls silent when he approaches, crew members suddenly trailing off in the middle of sentences in favor of putting their forks in their mouth.

“Commander,” one of them – Amara? Amanda? – says cordially.

This was a bad idea, he thinks, but he sees a glimmer at the corner of the room and he can’t let Kasumi beat him at cards and life, so he clears his throat and says, “Faber, I’d like to speak to you when you have a chance.”

Logan’s head snaps up, and he looks a little wild-eyed, but he nods. “Sure thing, Commander,” he says, and puts down his fork. “Now?”

“That’s fine.” Now everyone is staring at him, and he knows he’s only imagining Kasumi’s smile since she’s currently cloaked, but he still shuffles his feet a bit awkwardly before he nods at everyone sitting at the table. He’s aware that they’re watching as Logan follows him around to the other side of the elevators. It’s a small ship, and there’s nowhere to go that they won’t be overheard, but Shepard at least wants to be away from curious eyes. Well, except Kasumi’s, but he’s resigned to that by now.

“I, uh.” He stops, clears his throat, and Logan takes the stance of a soldier at rest. It makes Shepard frown. “I hope I’m not overstepping my bounds, but I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner sometime.” He thinks of what he just interrupted and rushes to clarify, “With me. In my cabin. Tomorrow night?”

Logan looks startled, but an uncertain smile tugs at his lips, and Shepard is surprised by an unfamiliar tickle of warmth at the sight. “Okay,” Logan says, then nods as if he’s making up his mind. “Sure.”

Shepard exhales in relief. “Enjoy the rest of your meal,” he says, and summons the elevator.

Kasumi materializes somewhere between the Crew Deck and the CIC, leaning against the elevator wall, arms crossed over her chest. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” she teases, smiling when he doesn’t answer. “But try not to be so stiff and… Commander-y on your date, okay?”

She darts out onto the CIC deck as soon as the doors open, leaving him before he can formulate an answer, and he punches the interface a little more forcefully than necessary to take him up to his cabin.

**

He tries to take Kasumi’s advice when Logan comes up to his room. He knows it’s only a first date, a trial run really, but Shepard still fills the two wineglasses on his table with a particularly nice vintage he picked up from Aethyta on Illium. He’s dressed in one of his nicer casual suits, and he’s done what he can to look less like an imposing space marine. Too bad that’s what he is.

EDI fails to warn him that Logan’s coming in, but that’s okay, because he’s been listening for the hydraulic whirr of the door since long before the time they’d agreed upon in little messages on their Omni-tools. Shepard can still see the last one from Logan, sent nearly eight hours ago now: I’m looking forward to it. :) 

Despite feelings he’s harbored for other people for years in secret, despite his general misgivings about expecting anything to work out, he’s actually started looking forward to this himself. He stands when Logan enters the room, tries on a smile. It feels rusty; he hopes it doesn’t look it.

“Hi,” Logan says, and Shepard hands him one of the wineglasses.

“Thanks for coming,” he says, and winces internally as he hears himself. He sounds like he’s gearing up to give a mission report to the council.

“Thanks for inviting me, si—um.” Logan lets the honorific trail off, and Shepard shifts uneasily.

“John,” he offers, though it sounds awkward. The last time anyone called him by his first name was – well, it was a long time ago, and he’ll leave it at that. “Have a seat.” He waves to the couch in the corner, realizing too late that it sounded like an order instead of an invitation.

Logan gets halfway to the couch and pauses, stiff through the back and shoulders. “Commander,” he says, and winces. “I – appreciate the interest, but I’ve been thinking and… maybe it’s not a good idea.”

Shepard pauses, a chill seeping through him. What changed since ten o’clock this morning? he wants to say, but he just nods. “No, that’s – you’re probably right.”

“It’s nothing personal,” Logan rushes to assure him. “You’re – you’re very attractive. It’s just – you’re Commander Shepard.” He shrugs apologetically, and Shepard has the uncharitable thought that it would’ve been nice to get a fuck out of the deal before the brush-off. It’s been a long time. Then again, it’s probably better this way.

“I should – I should go. But thank you. And – I’m sorry.” Logan leaves his wine on the table without taking a single sip, and Shepard sinks down onto the couch as the door whirrs open and then shut. He listens to the sound of the elevator, and then nothing but the quiet bubbling of the fish tank.

He drinks both glasses of wine.

**

It’s a small ship. Word spreads fast.

“Sorry,” Kasumi says first thing, as he sweeps away the wineglasses from their playing area.

“Yes, condolences,” Mordin agrees, already shuffling the deck of cards. “Never easy.”

“I’m fine,” Shepard says gruffly, and he means it. Mostly. He sees Kasumi eyeing him and points at her. “If you let me win out of pity, I swear I will dump you on the nearest moon with nothing but your Omni-tool and the clothes on your back.”

She grins at that, teeth gleaming so that for a moment he’s reminded of a varren’s fangs. He gets the feeling she doesn’t think much of his threat, and she beats him so soundly the first two hands that he figures he didn’t need to make it in the first place. But he wins a few of his own, and at the end of the night he’s broken even.

Some days, he thinks, that’s all you can really ask for.


End file.
